Iterative decoding with a hamming threshold for block turbo codes

This work introduces a novel approach to increase the performance of block turbo codes (BTCs). The idea is based on using a Hamming threshold to limit the search for the maximum-likelihood (ML) codeword within only those codewords that lie within this threshold. The proposed iterative decoding approach is shown to offer both significant coding gain and complexity reduction over the standard iterative decoding methods.